Ex-minister Kolusu locks horns with Bode Prasad

Vijayawada: Penamaluru Assembly constituency is likely to witness an interesting poll battle as former Minister and senior YSRCP leader Kolusu Parthasarathy locks horns with the sitting TDP MLA Bode Prasad.

The candidature of Bode Prasad was announced many months ago by the TDP leadership. This has helped bode Prasad to cover almost all villages in the constituency in the last few months. On the other hand, the YSRCP candidate Kolusu Parthasarathy started the campaign recently and has very less time to cover the entire constituency spread over Kankipadu, Penamaluru and Vuyyur mandals.

Bode Prasad won the elections in 2014 with a huge margin of over 31,000 votes against his nearest rival K Vidya Sagar of YSRCP. Last time, the election was a cakewalk for the TDP candidate.

Now Bode Prasad is facing K Parthasarathy, former minister in the Congress regime. Parthasarathy is very active in party administrative affairs and been spending time in the state head office in Vijayawada and Lotus Pond in Hyderabad. It could be a major drawback to Parthasarathy as he is not able to spend time for canvassing in the constituency.

Penamaluru segment is the blend of urban and rural areas. Being located very near to Vijayawada city, the villages like Poranki have many multi-storied apartments and urban culture with infrastructure facilities like roads, parks etc.

Bode Prasad is regularly meeting the voters for the last few months and consolidating his base further to win the elections. He always maintains good relations with the party functionaries and actively takes part in the activities organised by civil society organisations.

On the other hand, Parthasarathy is a senior politician and has strong base in many parts of the segment as he is associated with the people for over two decades. Penamaluru was formed after scrapping the Vuyyur Assembly constituency.

Parthasarathy enjoys the support of Backward Classes while Bode Prasad may get the support of Kamma voters. Muslims and SCs are in sizeable numbers and can change the fate of the candidates. As Parthasarathy is not spending time for the campaign, the party functionaries lament it may affect his winning prospects.